Daily Chore Chart

Children love feeling important and helpful, so daily chores are a great way to help them feel grown up and responsible. Even a 2-year old can help out in small ways.

Motivating your child

Talk about how Mummy and Daddy do so much work that helps in keeping house neat, and things in order. Talk about how family members work together to ensure that travel, food, shopping and other work is taken care of. Kids love being considered ‘old enough’ to help.

What your child can do!

Most kids can handle the most of these simple chores:

Putting all the pieces of a jigsaw into its box after use.

Gathering parts of a game and putting them into its box.

Placing toy kits and boxes in the toy shelf.

Putting books back in their shelves.

Putting dirty clothes in the laundry basket.

Picking up their clean, folded clothes and placing them in their shelves.

Putting their plates and cups in the right place after every meal.

Keeping their pillows in the right place.

According to your child’s age level, you can choose more advanced chores such as folding simple clothes like hankies and leggings.

Responsibility through chores

One of the most important things that a child learns by doing daily chores is responsibility for what is expected from them, and responsibility for keeping their own things. Children have many games and toys, and when jigsaw sets, building blocks, and other game sets are handled irresponsibly, they become meaningless when the contents are scattered. That is why many games and toys come with a sturdy cardboard or plastic box to store the objects. If the pieces of a game like puzzles and dominoes are kept in their box after every use, only then can the game be used for a long time. When this becomes a habit of the child, he/she can handle a cupboard full of toys and games.

Making the chart

Since preschoolers are not able to read large words and sentences, a simple pictorial chart can help. You may use colourful sketch pens to draw pictures that represent various tasks that a child does in a day. If the task is about putting things back into their boxes, you can draw a box; if it is about folding clothes, you can draw a T-shirt. Given below is one of the examples of a daily chore chart. You can also ask the child to help you with the drawings.

Keep the chart simple, with 4-5 chores per day and ask the child to mark the chores he/she performs each day. List them in the order they are likely to be done; what would be done first, next and later. Even simple tasks like brushing and bathing can be added to the chart to motivate kids to do them cheerfully. Paste the chart at a level where your child can easily use it daily. Every day, remind your child to check the “chore chart” and mark each chore or write ‘Done’ after completing it. This will allow children to monitor their own activities and feel responsible.

Rewards

To motivate the child and stay responsible, you can reward him/her. This could be done with a star sticker, or a smiley (given below as an example) or similar thing when all the chores of a day are completed. When the child has collected 3, 5 or 10 stars, you can think of a suitable reward such as an outing, a new game, or the child’s favourite snack. Keeping a surprise can also help to make it exciting. Rewards always encourage children to do better every time and thus reinforce positive behaviour and habits.